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Supreme Court Upholds Oregon Assisted-Suicide Law
Washington Post, January 17, 2006; 12:45 PM
The Supreme Court delivered a rebuff to the Bush administration over physician-assisted suicide today, rejecting a Justice Department effort to bar doctors in Oregon from helping terminally ill patients end their lives under a 1994 state law.
In a 6-3 vote, the court ruled that then-U.S. Attorney General John D. Ashcroft overstepped his authority in 2001 by trying to use a federal drug law to prosecute doctors who prescribed lethal overdoses under the Oregon Death With Dignity Act, the only law in the nation that allows physician-assisted suicide. The measure has been approved twice by Oregon voters and upheld by lower court rulings. |
This is the ruling I've been waiting for. It represented an effort by dominionist lawmakers to misinterpret a federal statute so that they could iimpose a religious ideology on the rest of the country. Assuming Alito joins the Court, this case reveals the kind of Supreme Court we can probably expect until another justice is replaced. We can expect a solid block of Scalia, Thomas, Roberts and Alito to support the goals of dominionists with Justice Kennedy emerging as the swing vote. In this case, he swung for Democracy. |
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